Lacan in the 21st century: Idol or Demon?

"Jacques Lacan continues to be the subject of the most extravagant interpretations, by turns idolised and demonised. But the context has changed: the heroic age of psychoanalysis has come to an end; we are witnessing the proliferation of psychotherapies – a thousand and one ways of alleviating contemporary suffering through practices that are increasingly regulated by the state. To recall, in these circumstances, what the Lacanian movement was all about is, first and foremost, to remember an intellectual and literary adventure that played a foundational role in our modernity: freedom of speech and of morals, the rise of all forms of emancipation (women, minorities, homosexuals), and the hope of changing life, education, the family and desire. For whilst Lacan went against the grain of many of the hopes of the post-’68 era, he embraced their paradoxes, to the extent that his plays on language and words resonate today as so many calls to re-establish society.”

Lacan, envers et contre tout (2011) .

Élisabeth Roudinesco